Rocket Burger & Fries – Melbourne CBD

I had been to Rocket Burger before on a few drunken nights out, but one hardly tends to remember the exact details of the food they shovel in at 5am in the shivering Melbourne weather while struggling to stay conscious and avoid getting run over by bad taxi drivers. Rocket Burger & Fries is situated conveniently opposite Flinders St station, so you’ll get the full Melbourne CBD experience while you wait. I went back there after work on Friday night so I could give a real review of it.

Here’s the storefront of Rocket Burger, where you’ll find plenty of the homeless or drug addled lunatics that inhabit the CBD lurking nearby any time after 6pm. There’s also a donut shop out of sight to the right there, owned by the same company (90% sure of that as it has the same sort of generic American theme).

The prices seem sort of expensive at first, if you compare them to typical fast food sludge such as McDonalds or Hungry Jacks. In fact, I almost refused to spend the money when one of my similar money-conscious friends told me I just ‘had’ to get some Rocket. More than $5 for a burger, are you insane? However, it appears that the quality may just justify the fairly hefty price tag.

This time I’ve bought the ‘Man Burger’ (that’s just bait for the wild feminazis already!), combo’ing it with a drink and fries, for around $17 in total. If you don’t eat a lot, even just the burger is enough for most people, but you’re definitely going to need a few litres of water to wash down the salt. So I figure you may as well get the combo anyway.

The burger patties are nice and juicy, the sauces go well with everything else, and the bun doesn’t get too soaked and messy. The bacon is cooked properly and not overdone. It’s also not ridiculously enormous like some burger joints do just to get facebook photos of their food going on. (What’s the point if you can’t eat it all?) This one is a great size, along with chips it makes me just the right amount of full.

The chips are definitely not standard fare either. I’ve had some bad ones in my time at other places, sometimes no better than Mcdonalds ones in both quality and size, and some that seemed offensively similar to frozen Coles brand crinkle cuts. Surely not…

But anyway, back to Rocket. I don’t know what they do to these, but they’re amazing, crispy ‘melt in your mouth’ texture, perhaps they cook them twice or simply send them up to heaven and back in time to be eaten by any seedy character willing to pay $5 for them. You get a choice of sauces, the ones in my picture have ‘Garlic Sour Cream’. Awesome. I could almost just eat a litre of the sauce it’s that good.

The only downsides to Rocket Burger are

Location, as the only seating is a few stools which are barely shielded from the elements. Also, the huge intersection right next to it ensures a constant barrage of noise. That, and the aforementioned wierdos lurking around. I’ve definitely felt the need to watch my bag or wallet while shovelling in meaty goodness.

Price – a bit beyond the normal kebab or maccas price point.

Overall, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars, which just leaves room for something out there to be even more heavenly, which I’m not sure when I’ll find.